


only love remains

by The Key To Imagine (whiskeywit)



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:13:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskeywit/pseuds/The%20Key%20To%20Imagine
Summary: Backup of old fic originally posted to the Beatles community JohnheartPaul, currently residing on key_to_imagine, currently open to read for everyone. Note contains the header as is on the LJ post.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Only love remains.  
> Rating: PG  
> Word count: 693  
> Disclaimer: I do not own the Beatles in any way at all, and nothing in this fic has ever happened for real – even though I like to believe it has. The title of the fiction, is actually one of Paul's songs. You can find the lyrics here, and yes they are slashy ;)

Paul sighed as he put the folder in which he kept his cards back into the draw where it would be stored for the rest of the year. Each year, he would write John a card for his birthday – even though it had almost been 27 years since he had passed away.   
   
Year after year, he would buy a new card and write John’s name in it – no address because there wasn’t anywhere to send it to anymore, and each year he would tell John to have a nice birthday. Every time, he would ask how it had been last year, whether he felt good. And, every single time again, he would tell him how much he loved him, and that he was looking forward to them seeing each other again.   
   
Linda hadn’t known anything about it. He’d never managed to gather the courage to tell her, he’d always thought it was none of her business. So he’d hid the folder away well, and added a new card each year. It was his way of dealing with one of the most painful days in the year.  
   
In the front, he had put all the cards and letters John had ever written to him. Most of them were love letters, but not all. Then there were a few about the hate and anger John was feeling, about the breakup of the Beatles. And then even later, from the years just before his death, they were warm and peaceful again.   
   
When the day arrived, the 9th of October, Paul would get the folder out of the drawer and first get all the letters John had written out of it. He would smell it, that last bit of John’s scent that seemed to fade a little each year.   
   
No matter how frantically he was trying to hold on to such things, no matter how vivid his memories of John still were, it wasn’t enough for him. He just wanted to be with him, not only mentally but also physically.  
   
After he’d read through all those letters, the ones he knew by heart now, he picked up his new card and started to write. Each time, he would start with ‘Dear John,’ and then wish him a happy birthday. It didn’t matter John would never receive the cards; it was more that he had the feeling as if he was really doing something for his birthday. In the earlier years after his death, he would go to the memorials that were held, but now he felt like he had grown past them.  
   
Now he would spend the day looking through old photo albums, the private ones he’d kept of him and John. Some of the pictures were public, spread on the internet, but the bigger part of them were ones that no one - except for him and John, and sometimes the photographer or the person who’d made the film into proper photos - had seen before. He grinned if he imagined how the world would look at them, probably in great wonderment.   
   
But no matter how many pictures he had, how many of his memories were still very vivid, or how the letters still contained John’s scent, John wasn’t here anymore to celebrate his birthday himself.   
   
So each year again, he wished John hadn’t been killed. Each year again, he wanted nothing more than to be with John and celebrate. Each year again, he told himself he had to tell the world about the relationship he had with John and each time again he couldn’t let himself say it, one more reason why he didn’t go to the memorials anymore.  
   
And each year, he put the folder into the draw again on the 10th of October, secretly hoping he would celebrate it together with John again the next year.  
   
After all those years of being alone, all that really remained of John was the love. The love, that Paul could still feel through the letters, written all those years ago. The love that Paul was trying to express in the songs he wrote, and sung to the world. And no one around him seemed to notice.


End file.
